That's the headline on a story in Sunday's Washington Post about the fallout from the midterm elections. The story is packaged with several others - traditionally long, narrative pieces on Karl Rove holding steadfast in the face of criticism, and one on Democrats looking for lessons in the GOPs mistakes and successes.

But what's interesting about the 'Questions That Defined the Election' story is the way it's packaged: it's essentially a short promotion in the newspaper to a much larger project on the Web site called Bellwethers: The Battle for Congress.

The story in the paper carries a brief explanation about a project that started in July when the political staff of The Washington Post and washingtonpost.com devised a list of eight questions that would frame the campaign. Some of the questions were about "long-term ideological and geographic trends" and others were about specific 2006 issues. Since July, individual stories (see bellwether link) looked at races where the key questions were "most vividly on display."

At the time each of those individual stories ran in the newspaper, I'm certain they were what you'd expect from The Washington Post: long, deep with analysis and context, and accompanied by charts and graphics.

And since those stories are still online, there was no reason for the paper to print them again in this Sunday's paper as part of a tally of the election. Instead, there are eight questions, eight one-word answers (three words in one case) and then eight longer answers with context and election results. It looks something like this:

1. The Elephant in the Room: How big a problem is President Bush for the GOP? The short answer: Big (The long answer talks about anti-Bush sentiment wiping out some unlikely candidates)

2. Money Matters: Will pocketbook concerns move voters? The answer: Sometimes

3. Tune In, Turn On: Which issues will send voters to the polls? The answer: Check in '08

And so on.

It's vintage political and governmental reporting. Does anyone do that as well as The Washington Post? But even such a venerable and traditional newspaper as the Post makes use of the Web to send readers back and forth to the medium that best serves each particular story.

For readers here in Post territory who want to reread the extensive stories that comprised the 2006 Bellwether Project, they're just a mouse click away. For readers who don't want to go back, who don't have the time, or who don't have a computer, there is just enough information in today's paper to update them on the issues.

It's good packaging. It's one of the great benefits of the Web, and one that we ought to exploit more than we do.

Sometimes there's a tendency to want to repeat every word and punctuation mark for readers who missed it the first time. But space is limited, resources are limited, and attention is limited. The Web gives us a place to be a 'paper of record' and frees us in print to experiment with brevity and alternative approaches to telling stories and presenting data.

I've got the benefit of both the Web package and the paper's synopsis in front of me. While the archival stories are certainly more detailed, I have enough information in today's story to sound smart on the subway, if that's my only option.

This is interesting Carla, but it brings to mind something I heard at SABEW earlier this year. One speaker was Richard Zannino, CEO of Dow Jones, who spoke about the Wall Street Journal and its Web site. He said their approach is NOT to send readers back and forth between online and print, because that leaves each group feeling like they're being cheated -- like they're not getting the whole story. Instead, WSJ tries to offer up separate content for its online and print audiences. I just grabbed the print WSJ off the stack in front of me and indeed, there are none of the "On the Web" refers that pepper so many newspapers these days (including ours). Maybe they take that tack because they charge for online content, but I'd be interested to hear what some of the experts you're visiting with have to say about the WSJ approach.

I'm meeting with folks at The Washington Post on Tuesday. I'll ask them about The Wall Street Journal model.

I DO know from past conversations that the WSJ is considered somewhat of an exception to the concept of pulling readers back and forth across platforms.

The WSJ provides specialized content that you can't get anywhere else. That's why they can get away with charging for it. People are willing to pay.

But for most of the industry, the prevailing theory seems to be that readers do migrate from print to Web and back again. We owe it to those readers to give them as many navigational tools as possible.

And here's an even more practical argument: we can't afford NOT to. With circulation dropping and a business model for the Web still in beta testing, papers have no choice but to grab readers wherever and however they can.

It's a matter of survival that we send the message that readers can get news and features any time and on any platform they choose.